Keeping up appearances, or, getting over not being the fit girl at school

Yesterday, I had the uncanny, yet singularly modern experience of being contacted on Facebook by a girl I last spoke to in year eight, at school.

I hesitated at her friend request. It’s a long time since I thought back that far, and I keep up with so few people from my childhood. We were not especially close. She came from a side of town my dad disapproved of, and we were divided, as much by social and educational barriers as playground politics – in year nine I was shipped off to the girls’ grammar next door, while she continued at the local comp. But we liked each other, for all we recognised, even then, the social gulf between us

I decided to stop being a social snob and I’m glad I did. Now mother to a teenager as well as two a bit younger, she works for the local council of the town I once called home. She remembers me as funny, well spoken, and melodramatic, crying at break time over River Phoenix’s death.  I remember her hanging out with me when others would not, and that we were picked for high jump at sports day for our matching gangly legs, though hers had the blossoming sex appeal of an early developer whereas mine were just skinny and awkward. I said I’d look her up next time I go home, or rather, on the rare occasion I visit my dad. And I will.

She is still beautiful, although she lolled when I said she hadn’t changed. We both agreed we only publish our most flattering pics. But more confidence shone through in the smiling, white toothed shots than she ever had at school, where, I always felt, she wore a mild air of neglect, self conciousness and second hand smoke. It made me happy  that her trajectory seems better than her apparent roots might have predicted, for all she’s not ended up physically far from where she started.

Flicking through her snaps and selfies, I came across a picture of another old school acquaintance from way back when: the girl who had been the fittest girl at school. The one who filled a trainer bra two years before the rest of us, who all the boys fancied, who was allowed to wear the latest Tammy Girl trends, to watch EastEnders, to stay up late.

Why did I feel a jolt that her bloom has long faded? Why did I feel something akin to victory when I saw the now puffy features of the pretty girl I once knew? It’s not that she was especially unkind, although she was part of a gang of girls who eventually excluded me. It was more that the hope I’d clung onto, as a spotty eleven year old, of some ugly duckling evolution, had clearly come to pass. A lifetime of good nutrition, regular exercise, staying out of the sun has effected a revolution. These days, it appears, I am more attractive than she, by a fair measure. Should it matter any more?

It was Coco Chanel who said, “nature gives you the face you have at twenty. Life shapes the face you have at thirty. But at fifty you get the face you deserve.”

But at 33, the scales are tipping between the confidence bestowed by maturity, yoga and five a day, and no longer giving that much of a shit. If I ever needed the validation of being told I was beautiful – I’m not, but I’m good with make up after a lifetime of dubious skin, which forced me into reasonable eating habits and regular exercise –  I soon realised that looking good brings its own set of troubles; troubles, I expect, my precocious school friends may well have learned earlier than me.

Although good grooming never goes out of style, there is an air of desperation about a woman who clings onto vanity much beyond her fertile peak. Trying to maintain the bloom of youth can become a tyranny of middle age and it’s with a certain sigh of relief that I’ve realised that the good fight may just not be worth the effort. It‘s high time to stop letting schoolgirl insecurities make me keep striving for something unattainable and, in the end, of little value anyway. 

There is a joie de vivre to be found in letting yourself go a bit, of lying in the sun caring not a jot that it may prematurely age you. I’ve grown accustomed to silver threads in my hair, hair on my lip, cellulite on my thighs. It’s not that I’m ready to embrace frumpdom. But I’m happy enough to act my own age: to aim for elegance now sexy has by and gone by the wayside.

Perhaps this revelation comes early to those who blossom first. Perhaps, for me, it’s going on the pill. It’s dampened everything; moods, sex drive, the will to keep making an effort. Perhaps I worked off a lot my angst about my appearance when I was a dancer, when my looks were put out to market and implicitly linked to my earning potential, where I played on my strengths and hid my flaws with glitter, sequins and heavy duty foundation.

Maybe I had more to prove back then. But the cerebral, bookish part of me has always rebelled against it: the exhausting effort to maintain society’s standard of  female beauty. Poor Tom has always borne the brunt of meeting me in character. It must have come as a shock to realise I was, in real life, something of a beauty slob. The waxed and polished Juliet I was when he met me had proved her point: I can pull it off when I have to, so why bother the rest of the time? 

For many women, it’s pregnancy when you lose the will to keep it up, to stop dealing with your bikini line, have your cake and eat it; enjoy the moment on the lips and to hell with the lifetime on the hips. I know with Ava, I was so knackered in the first trimester that shaving my leg hair felt like a chore too far, but by the time I was over the morning sickness, my hormones and inertia had combined to give my pins the appearance of a hirsute pony, if not the muscle tone. I rallied afterwards, doing sit ups and kegels to repair the damage, but something tells me, if I go though it all again, I may be less inclined to put in all that effort.  But for a while, there was a morbid fascination in just how far I could take it, which I’ve experimented with every winter since. 

 There’s a balance to be struck in all things, even in letting yourself go. I thank god how attractive I look no longer affects my income, but there is a positive correlation between looks and success that can’t be disputed – how you should dress for the job you want, not the one you have. So now spring is here, it’s time to get a grip. My razor’s back in service and it’s time to keep up appearances for another year. I went clothes shopping at the weekend, something that I’d grown to loathe tailed by two fretful kids and a list of things we couldn’t much afford, but times have thankfully moved on, and I finally can treat myself to time alone and clothes that fit. I’d made a virtue of picking up non-nylon bargains down the Roman Road, or scouring the jumble at TK Maxx: hardly retail therapy, but you can more or less get away with wearing tat when your hipbones jut out. They don’t any more. I’m okay with that, but my wardrobe hadn’t quite caught up.

As I set off alone to go to Westfield Stratford, I realised I’d not had a self-indulgent shopping trip since before the kids were born, back in the days when I was still imbued with the capitalist fervour of ”I shop, therefore I am,” enshrined by the likes of Sex in the City and the worst early noughties’ chick lit.  I no longer suffer the worst symptoms of affluenza, which  was sweated out of me by mortgage poverty and manifold shopping centre tantrums. But my latent hunter gatherer instincts, combined with an upbringing that linked success to possessions means I still feel better about myself when my clothes fit and if possible, coordinate.

It was, if not exactly bliss, certainly a revelation. I tend to shop with purpose, with a good idea of what I want: a new denim skirt – the one I’ve worn since my twenties is starting to make me look like mutton now it rides up too high on curvier haunches; and jerseys – already late in the season as the depths of winter have shifted to make way for something approximating spring, but this is England, and the rain will return sooner rather than later; a denim jacket I can button up – my boobs, which may have been non-existent at 12 have flourished in my thirties – a pretty, waist skimming blouse that conceals the muffin top I no longer have now my jeans fit (an easy fix, if ever there was one), and then shopping for Tom’s birthday gift – a wristwatch that looks stylish but didn’t cost a fortune, I treated myself to a handbag – more of a splurge, but easy to justify when two of mine are crumbling, and this one matches a winter jacket…I digress.

The main reason, these days,  I perhaps look better than my erstwhile school rival, at least on Facebook, is probably because I can now throw a bit of money at the situation, even if it’s just a couple of hundred quid. But it’s more than that of course. It’s good food, gym membership, nice make up, the trappings of two-income middle classness. It’s a revolution that many of my university peers have recently effected over their less well educated school friends: the old tortoise versus the hare, the revenge of the geek. Of course, it’s evolution that makes these early bloomers burn bright, and burn out. Their time in the sun in short lived. they need their fair share of good genes. For the rest of us, we have to work harder for our spoils, but the rewards are longer lasting.

I conjecture. She might have had a hell of a life. She might have got a PHD, or be married to a rapper. Who am I to judge? And why do I still care? But that’s the point. I’ve realised, with some relief, that I don’t.

I coloured my hair on Sunday morning, after revelling in three months of regrowth, thriftily eeking out my highlights with a vegetable toner which never quite conceals the greys. I also spent the day in the sun, allowing my face to tan in a way I never would have in my twenties, back when

I was afraid of wrinkles, when I still had my face, but not my fortune. I’m not afraid of them any more. What’s to be afraid of, when you’re still struggling with spots in your thirties? I now know how to conceal both just as well. But that’s the beauty of ageing. I can grow older gracefully now I feel more at peace with the world, myself and everything I have achieved, I’m doing okay. When I can be bothered, have the time and resources,  I look better than the fittest girl at school. Even though it doesn’t matter that much, any more.